Transforming to the Cloud While Reducing Cost and Enhancing Security

Wednesday, June 9 | 2 PM EST

It is no secret that the cloud has become more complex this past year. Critical elements including data and security have become a main element of concern across the United States. In this webcast, you will hear from experts Bob Burwell, Chief Technology Officer for NetApp’s State Local, Government, Education division and Richard Villars, Group Vice President, Worldwide Research at IDC on how transforming to the cloud will reduce cost while enhancing security and efficiency.

Key Topics that will be discussed:

• Optimizing and securing cloud resources
• Making your business more resilient
• Managing and securing diverse cloud data sets

Presenter: IDC Group Vice President, Worldwide Research, Rick Villars

Mr. Villars leads IDC’s global cloud research team, driving the ongoing development of IDC’s widely-used cloud services forecasts and the tracking of cloud services adoption. He also leads the development of IDC’s annual Worldwide FutureScapes themes and predictions that focuses on the transformation of the IT industry (and other industries) in this time of accelerated innovation.

His research enables clients to create preemptive business and technology strategies grounded in sound financial practices and a comprehensive understanding of competitive ecosystems. He empowers IT leaders to deliver strategically-aligned organizational development and talent management plans. A skilled executive coach and change agent, he works with clients to foster executive intrapreneurship in enterprise-class organizations.

Over the past decade, he has been a keynote speaker at IDC’s annual Directions conferences in the U.S. and in many other countries as well as at CIO and Partner Summits and other major industry events. He also regularly interacts with buy-side, sell-side and private equity financial analysts to discuss the implications of emerging ICT trends on leading ICT companies.

Prior to taking on this role, Mr. Villars has spent over 30 years assessing the evolution of network, storage, and server infrastructure as well as advising companies on the impact of the cloud on existing IT practices. The role included developing IDC’s viewpoints on the workloads driving the adoption of converged and software defined IT solutions as well as public and private cloud solutions. He also led IDC’s ongoing assessment of the evolution of datacenter design, placement, and management strategies. And advised clients on the impact of new IT consumption models and technologies on organizations’ infrastructure, deployment, procurement, and management practices.